That Awful Sound
by VioletLolitaPop
Summary: He wore black and I wore white. He would always win the fight. .: Nyotalia - Fem!Russia : Human/Fanon Names : Crime AU : Character Death:.))


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_"Seasons came and changed the time."_

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"It's strange... At least, I find it strange..."

There are sirens in the distance - from fire engines, paramedics, and of course a slew of squad cars. Higher intelligence agencies never bother much with letting the local enforcement know what would be happening in their cities when it comes to special cases. The thought has her smile. A special case...

"Al-fred..." She breaks the name into two parts, holds each syllable with a tender touch and loving caress to make it last. It breaks his heart, she can see it in the wobble of the barrel still pointed at her. "Al-fred.. Don't you find it strange?"

The heat from the fire roaring behind her warms the exposed skin peeking through the large gash on the side of her tight suit. Her normally neatly hair is a tangled disarray soaked with sweat and splattered with the blood of those who have fallen around her during the escape. And what an escape it had been...

Using her accomplice as a shield when the raid first began, blowing through the heads of those who dared to shoot at her first, throwing his lifeless corpse at federal agents as a distraction to grab the leather bag filled with the contents of their dealings. She herself had started the fire, the beginning being nothing more than a tipped over barrel of kerosene and the loss of her prized lighter, and raced up the iron steps leading up and onto catwalks crossing one another so close to the ceiling.

And she had been so close, so close to reaching her exit when the lack of foresight reared it's ugly head, and suddenly the fires that had helped her slip through law enforcement's hands hit the forgotten crates of gunpowder stowed away in some lonesome part of the warehouse nobody had bothered to notice, and everyone gets caught in the blast that follows.

Being so high up, and needing to dodge the bullet that fly after her from those below and able to aim, she doesn't realize the danger, and when the explosions hits it rattles the entire building, cuts down bars that kept her steady and she does everything in her power to hold on to the beam that suddenly swings out from under her. She falls with it, nearly hits the opposite wall and moves herself to crash through the broken window.

The frame cuts her, the glass nicks her, and she lands twisted up in the destroyed wrought iron of the fire escape with a sickening crunch and a guttural howl of pain that comes from her own mouth. She can't see too well in the dim light and the flames flicker too wildly to make for a clear view, but she knows she's broken something and quite badly. She knows there's bone poking through the skin of her leg and she bites her lip as she frees herself from the mangled position in which she's caught. From there she goes up, knowing that below will be swarmed with police and she'll have the advantage. She uses all of her strength to drag her body up the remaining pieces of ladders to reach the rooftop so that she may quickly think of a plan.

Or that had been her plan, anyway.

Despite her high profile status, she had always been able to allude her captors. For the most part. There has only ever been one to know her so well as to know that even when not having a pattern, or a general routine that is followed, what her next move will be and how he should counter it. She did not think he would be here, and even so, she always did count on him letting her go. The foundation of their relationship, had always been the reason.

Coming over that edge, hissing as she drags her legs over and hit the graveled up roof without any care, and seeing him there with his gun in hand, waiting for her, looking so sure, makes her laugh. It puts him off, has him aim his weapon at her where they both know it will kill her dead on, and orders her to remain still. Though he does seem serious this time, blue eyes steely and glinting, reflecting off the flickering lights and mouth set straight. She sighs rather regrettably so, and smiles at him serenely.

And she finds it so strange, even laughable, that all those years and this is what it comes to...

She laughs again, more of a small giggle if anything, and attempts to move her seemingly uninjured leg from underneath her. The pain from her broken leg shoots up through her entire body as if the very fire behind them begins to rush through her veins. She struggles, desperately so, to leave that be as well as she can and use her other to stand, and cries out loud enough to be heard over the approaching helicopter before collapsing back to the ground. There are tears that threaten to spill, and she refuses to let them do so.

"Alfred," she laughs softly. "Alfred, I can't.. I can't move my legs. One is broken, and the other.. Well, the other just refuses. Isn't that funny?"

She stares at him. Wills him to answer. Perhaps watches a little too intensely as he licks at his dried lips.

"No, Anya," he replies. "I don't- I don't think that's funny at all."

She shrugs to the best way she can.

"We always did have a different sense of humor."

Anya does not bother to struggle with her half-baked methods to continue to survive. A very grim reality is setting on her, and she counts out the bullets that were used in the piece still in her own hand...

Four plus three plus two plus...

Her eyes hold Alfred's. It seems rather cruel. Ah, but he's been so cruel to her, it's the least he can do.

"Tell me," she says, "how is your wife? She is having another child, isn't she? How lucky for your little girl, though she must learn how to be a big sister."

Alfred's aim falters. "Don't."

"I'm sure she's waiting for you now. Still awake at such an hour, imagining how things could go wrong. How happy she'll be when you walk through that door, it's a very touching thought."

"Anya, stop it."

"It won't do," she continues to say and brings her own weapon out for show. "It won't do at all to not have you come home."

She releases the magazine, slips a hand into the small pouch attached to her belt and brings out another. It weighs nothing at all.

"No, to have her wait for a man that will not show up, that is the worst of all."

"That's not fair," he says. "I told you to wait for me, I told you that I was going to come back for you. I promised you, you left me!"

Her demeanor changes. Her eyes harden and her act drops. He always is the one to rile her temper the most.

"Do not play the victim," she says with venom dripping off every word, "don't you dare make it my fault. I was sixteen years old, asked to wait for some air headed boy to make good on his dreams while living in halfway homes as my brother lay dying in a hospital bleeding us dry, and another brother rotting away in prison cell as my father slapped me around for being useless."

She pulls back the barrel. Rather pay attention to the odd sound that's made, he's focused on how she aims at him.

"Say I left you, but I survived, and I will only go out on my own terms."

"If you shoot at me, then I have ever right to shoot back," he warns.

"I dare you."

"Just come with me, Anya. Come with me, and nothing has to happen."

"I won't go to prison."

"It doesn't have to-"

"Don't lie to me, Alfred, we both know there is too much in my file for any leniency."

"Lemme finish!" he shouts, and for some reason, she's more inclined to listen.

She watches the bob in his throat as he swallows thickly, raises her eyes back to his face and sees all the laugh lines etched around his mouth, the maturity of his jaw bone, and the harshness that leaves his eyes. He looks at her softer now, almost the same way as he did then...

"I doesn't have to come to this," he says. "I don't want you to die, not here, not like this. Goddammit, Anya, you are so much better than this.."

A memory... The both of them wrapped and bundled up against the biting winds of a Winter ending and standing beneath an early blooming tree in the one safe haven of their undesirable neighborhood. The perfume of fresh leaves surround her and she closes her eyes to enjoy the scent, only opens them again when glove covered hand cups at her chin. They flash open and she sees Alfred leaned in too close, but rather step back, she smiles at him and tilts her head as he does the same while coming in closer. At thirteen, she shares her first kiss with the only boy she'll ever love, with him telling her that she deserves so much better than what she has now, and one day soon, he'll give that to her.

The tears she's kept at bay spill over and run down her face in neat little tracks. The pain in her lower body, is nothing compared to the one in her chest.

"I won't be caged up," she says in a low tone that the wind needs to carry in order to be heard. "Not again."

Her glock is raised, her aim true.

"Anya-!"

"You have a family, Alfred, I don't. You make your decision."

There's a small feeling of pleasure as she observes the ongoing fight he has within himself. She snaps him out of it with a grand show of placing her finger on the trigger.

He aims.

She pulls back.

_Click._

_**Bang.**_

_**Bang.**_

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The sickening stink of sulfur mixed with burnt wood cover the metallic stench of spilt blood well enough, thankfully. Water continues to splash out from the firemen's hoses, dark thick plumes of smoke billow up towards the sky. A single plume of white joins in as it stems off from the red lit end of a cigarette hanging listlessly from its smoker.

"You did good, Jones."

Maybe.

"In a way."

Exactly.

"It'd be better for us if we coulda taken her in alive."

Him too.

"But she always did manage to get away from you somehow."

_Always_...

"Get home, get some rest. Say hello to the Mrs. for me."

The sound of gravel crunching under heavy footsteps permeates the sound of everyone else talking, and maybe it's a good thing.

The cigarette's plucked out from his mouth and tossed to the floor, crushed under his own sure footing as a hand comes to wipe down his face. His eyes are red, he's blamed the smoke. He walks away from the scene.

Rest. Sure.

_Rest._

**xxx**

Disclaimer: Bang, bang, my baby shot me down.

-... I've been on a bit of a Quentin Tarantino kick. That only means that I've been listening to a lot of soundtracks lately.

-Don't be surprised if I come out with a Reservoir Dogs crossover.

-France is totally Mr. White.

-I don't wanna make Russia Mr. Blonde, but idk we'll see.

-None of those bullets had anything to do with this fic.

-Thanks for reading, stay shiny, love you all~ xoxo


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